


Shadow at the Gate

by tirsynni



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 08:51:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5085754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what it felt like, the Xavier Mansion wasn't haunted. A telepath should be able to handle something as pathetic as memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow at the Gate

Moans carried through the Xavier mansion: sobs and screams embedded in the walls, ghosts of sound and memory. Splashes of red never cleaned, darkened by age and camouflaged into wood and carpet.

“Just memories,” Charles Xavier whispered to himself, and he willed the excited exclamations of Sean and Alex to bury the old sounds.

Raven leaned against his shoulder, staring down the long hallway. The pattern on the carpet repeated itself over and over, leading the eye downward into the dark. “You can claim the master bedroom now, if you want.”

Hank was yelling something about the chandelier. Let them break it. Let them break everything, scour the house, start anew. Charles inhaled and breathed in dust and the faint scent of decay. A dead mouse, maybe? A rodent rotting in the walls… Before him, the hallway seemed to stretch on and on, hurtling forward until it reached the innocuous oak door at the end. It was the biggest room in the mansion, with its own bathroom and sumptuous furniture, a bed big enough for all the boys to sleep in without touching each other.

Charles exhaled and tasted old blood at the back of his throat, stale iron and copper. He shook his head. How dramatic. It was just a damned empty room in a damned empty house. Nothing here but memories, and a telepath should be in enough control of his own mind to control those.

Still… He turned to Raven and curved his mouth into a smile. “This is supposed to be a new start. We could both claim completely new rooms if we wanted. No reason to stick with the old.”

Raven didn’t smile back. She looked disappointed, but Charles wasn’t allowed to check. Had she expected him to claim that room? Erase Kurt’s mark with his own?

Fuck fuck fuck. Charles shook his head again, trying to clear away thoughts of Kurt’s _mark_. The mansion was getting to himself more than he expected. Absolutely ridiculous and childish. As if he…

In the distance, there was a sharp crash and a yelp. Charles reached out and yes, the chandelier was gone.

Then Raven’s hand grabbed his own, and Charles’s focus faltered. “Maybe we can point them to Kurt’s study,” she mused, startling a laugh out of Charles.

“Agreed.”

They walked to where they heard Hank shouting, hands locked in a death grip.

xoxoxoxox

Hank was terrified to touch anything and Sean wanted to touch everything and Alex seemed to want to break everything with an anger which should worry Charles but wearied him instead. Moira struggled to keep her awe to herself, even now her focus on professionalism and her own mission keeping her spine straight and eyes sharp. There was something here, she and Alex both caught, on levels only a cop and a criminal could understand. Mysteries concealed in crevasses, secrets skulking in shadows.

Charles wasn’t sure what Erik caught, and based on the flash he saw from Erik, he didn’t want to know. How many of his marks had lived in such grandeur? How many of them used their blood money to secure such housing? Charles saw a corpse in a pool of blood in an office too similar to Kurt’s, and after that, he turned away. All the more reason to keep his silly misgivings to himself.

They all helped clean and organize. Charles explained the lay of the land and Moira determined how much they should focus on cleaning up for their stay. Erik led Raven off explaining they were “going to investigate” while the boys submitted to Moira’s directions. Charles tried not to listen or watch as Erik and Raven circled the mansion like wolves.

Defense. Offense. Weak points and breakable points and –

“Charles?” Moira called to him, raising an eyebrow. She rested her hands on her hips, reminding him of a general.

Too much war in this house, too many weapons.

Charles smiled at her, but her shoulders didn’t relax, nor did her gaze. “Just lost in memory for a minute. Where do you want me?”

He winked at her. With a roll of her eyes, the moment broke. “Just help me keep an eye on the boys. I hope you weren’t too fond of your vases. I think Alex is going for them deliberately.”

As if to prove her right, another one shattered in the distance. Charles barely heard Sean’s laughter over Hank’s yelling. “I think Hank cares more than me, really.”

He walked beside her, staring down the hall where the boys huddled over a shattered vase. Bright blue shards spilled over red carpet. It looked lovelier like that than it had whole.

“And you’re right,” he said, watching Alex prod the shards with his shoe. “He is.”

Charles watched Alex prod the shards again and look up at Hank, who continued to flail at the broken vase. After a moment, Alex scowled and turned back to the pieces, kicking them across the carpet. Sean yelped and jumped out of the way.

“Focus, boys!” Moira barked, and all three straightened. “Unless you want to sleep on dusty sheets tonight.”

Hank and Sean knelt down to gather the pieces, but Alex remained standing. He stared at Charles, his thoughts blasting at him like his plasma rings. Charles shook his head.

Beyond his reach, Erik continued to teach Raven weak points and how she could defend against each one.

xoxoxoxox

By nightfall, a small section of the house was livable. When Kurt took over, he fired the help except minimal staff – to save money, he claimed – and when he and Sharon died and Raven and Charles left, the house stood empty but for the occasional trip by a caregiver to make sure rodents hadn’t claimed it.

Alex ended up breaking three more vases before retiring to his bedroom. Each one was over a hundred years older than him and almost sent Hank into hysterics. Sean remained the calmest of the three – a terrifying notion – and was the first to collapse into bed after the sun set. None of them would admit it, Charles knew, but they all needed rest.

Raven went to her old bedroom, a defiant act Charles refused to look into too closely. Charles claimed a new bedroom and Erik grabbed one close to it. Moira claimed the one with a large writing table. He could feel her now, worrying to herself, a silent, gnawing fear. There was so much to fear.

He could feel Erik and Raven, too, awake in their rooms. The boys were asleep, only Sean sleeping in moderate peace, Alex’s rage and despair a black miasma in his bedroom, Hank a whirlpool of plans and anxiety. Charles didn’t delve into Erik and Raven, focusing more on his own pacing.

Well, not pacing, really. Pacing implied no destination, walking for the sake of walking, out of restlessness, perhaps, or anxiety. Charles bit his lip and walked down the hallway to the master bedroom. He ran his fingers over the walls, fingertips gathering grey dust. His mother would have thrown a fit. Everything always needed to be clean, in its place, even as she stumbled and fell.

It was about looks. Even if the world was ending, you had to _look_ like everything was under control.

On the other end of the hallway was Charles’s old bedroom. Charles paused and looked behind him, but it was too dark to find the old door. No matter. He could always find it.

He wasn’t the only one.

Charles faced forward again and stared at the oak door. “This is ridiculous,” he repeated to himself. “Absolutely ridiculous.”

He ran his hand over his face, only to feel sweat gathering on his palm. He glared at his damp hand in disgust. A madman was plotting World War III. One young man ( _your mutation is adaptation please come back please come back please please_ ) under his protection was already dead. Angel…he had failed her in a completely different way. Countless agents had died in the CIA complex.

Erik…Erik had gone through so much worse.

The walls creaked and they sounded like moans.

Charles buried his face in his hands. This was the only place they had, so Charles needed to buck up. They could not afford for him to be childish now.

_Charles?_ Erik called.

Charles dropped his hands to his sides. Before him, the hallway mocked him, a teasing trail to that damned door.

She died in there, Charles remembered suddenly. Choking on her own vomit.

_Charles?_ Erik repeated, mental voice sharp. Well, Charles was ignoring him.

_Yes?_ Charles called back. He turned away from the master bedroom, but that way only led to his old bedroom, lost in the shadows. The carpet leading there was thick, soft, and when Charles walked back the way he came, he couldn’t hear his own steps. He ran his hand over the wall again as he walked.

_Would you like to play a game of chess?_

There were multiple studies in the home, one close to the bedrooms Charles and Erik had chosen. One was right above Charles now: his father’s old study. Kurt had claimed it for all of a month before saying it didn’t fit him at all. Charles thought it fit him perfectly, but he knew better by then not to say anything. He also caught the mental image of what forced Kurt to flee.

“There is no such thing as ghosts,” Charles said aloud, even as he agreed and mentally pointed Erik to the study.

xoxoxoxo

The carpet had been thick enough to soften Charles’s steps but never Kurt’s. Kurt had almost two hundred pounds on Charles, and he had a hundred on Cain. Sharon and Raven were nothing compared to him. Charles couldn’t protect Sharon, but he hid Raven, muffled her hearing, hid her from Kurt’s sight.

By the time puberty came and his powers grew strong enough to handle both the Markos, Kurt was dead and Cain was gone.

xoxoxoxo

“Checkmate,” Erik announced, setting down his knight with a definite thud.

Charles blinked and looked over the board. He had not even realized Erik was that close. He sipped his Scotch and looked over the board. “Indeed. Another match then?”

The Scotch burned going down, a pleasant warmth, but nothing compared to Erik’s gaze. Erik’s eyes glittered in the firelight, staring at Charles like _he_ was the telepath of the pair. Charles sipped his drink and studied Erik in turn. Sometimes he thought Erik would just push the board aside and grab him, taking what Charles had been offering for weeks now. Other times the thought was mindboggling, Erik asexual in his focus and rage, truly Shaw’s living weapon. None of those concepts were what kept Charles still, kept him from assessing if Erik _was_ interested or making his own offer to Erik.

It would be easy, though, so easy. Men were simple creatures when it came to sexuality. Even the ones who claimed no interest in men fell easily into the promise of wet heat. Women were more complex in their sexuality, not in their needs but in the way society bound them. Once Charles assured men that he was no threat, most were easy.

Erik, if he was truly interested, would be easy, Charles knew. Based on the heat of Erik’s gaze, Charles was sure he was interested. Erik was one of the most straightforward men Charles knew. If Charles offered openly, licked his lips and spread his legs, Erik would take. Part of him felt that Erik would be gentle with him, Erik’s odd protectiveness shining through, seeing his cock as a weapon like men tended to do. The rest of him felt that Erik could easily grow careless with his target right in front of him, charging forward and abandoning his graces behind him.

Like in Russia, with Charles trailing helplessly behind.

That was what kept Charles still now, sipping his drink and focusing on the burn.

“I don’t think these counted as matches, my friend,” Erik said. He leaned forward, elbows resting on the board. “Is something troubling you? You did not play this poorly even when Cerebro gave you migraines.”

Charles reviewed the board again. He _had_ been playing poorly, but he didn’t think –

“Charles.” Erik grabbed the hand not holding the glass. Charles hadn’t realized he left it on the board, a finger stroking one of the pawns. “What is wrong? Is it Darwin?”

Charles’s face heated. He looked away from Erik into the fire, only to realize the mistake it was. He turned back to the board. Yes, looking at it now his choices were…not his best. Not at all.

Because Darwin – and Angel – _should_ have been what was distracting him, what was keeping him up at night. Alex’s dreams tugged at him, confused desire and despair and anger. Raven’s own rage battered at him, helpless fury slicing through his shields. He thought he felt a glimmer of Darwin’s presence lingering in that broken room and sent all of his power into a message, a map, a call for Darwin to follow if he could adapt _just one more time_ …

And Angel…a dark terror tore at him whenever he thought of Angel. From what Hank had shown him – had _insisted_ on showing him – she had made her choice easily. How easy would that same choice be for others? For --

Yes, this was what should have been bothering him, and he hated himself that it wasn’t.

“It has just been a long couple weeks, Erik,” Charles assured him. “That’s all.”

Erik studied him like he could read all of Charles’s secrets embedded into his skin. What few were visible were buried under layers of clothes and faded by time, like letters whose ink had dulled. Charles smiled, an inviting curl of his lips, and Erik looked away with a snarl.

Charles’s smile faded. “Erik…?”

Erik picked up the Queen and rolled it in his hands. One side glowed red in the firelight, the rest white against Erik’s scarred hands. “You know so much about the rest of us,” Erik mused, the Queen twisting and turning and rolling back and forth between his palms, “and we only know what you wish to share. I feel like even the CIA has no idea of half your secrets.”

Another sip, only to discover the glass was empty. Charles looked around for the bottle. “I assure you, my friend, my secrets aren’t interesting.”

Pathetic, yes, but not interesting.

The house creaked, moans in the dark. Charles clenched the glass. Where was –

Erik plucked the glass from his fingers and put it beside the board. “I can’t imagine anything about you not being interesting.”

In the firelight, Erik looked stunning, the flickers of light caressing and highlighting and bringing out the burn in his gaze. It would be so _easy_ to pull Erik close, to show him some of his sweeter secrets, to whisper more into his ear as he pulled Erik to the carpet before the fireplace. Erik’s mouth would be so hot, his hands so strong –

Charles shuddered and looked away. “I promise you, my friend. You are missing nothing of import.”

xoxoxoxo

There was a closet in the hallway. Charles would push Raven in there sometimes, whisper for her to make herself small, for her to remain quiet and still. Charles could feel Cain in his room, seething and snarling and so frightened it made Charles’s own heart race.

Then the door would open.

xoxoxoxo

“Professor, I think I found a lab! Could I…?”

“Yes, yes, of course. It’s a bit of a mess. Why don’t you have Sean and Alex help you clean it? Don’t worry about salvaging anything. Everything in there is beyond saving, I fear.”

xoxoxoxo

The dining room had been a massive thing, designed for dinner parties and guests and jewels to be displayed under a shining chandelier. That chandelier had been one of the first things to die, although due to Sean instead of Alex. Alex had studied Charles’s face when he dismissed the damage and within two hours, Alex had destroyed another chandelier, this time in the dusty ballroom.

All of them had agreed that the dining room was far too large for their small group. To everyone’s surprise, Erik took charge over most of the cooking. Hank had volunteered Moira and Raven, which somehow led to Moira teaching Raven proper weapon cleaning and how to take a gun apart and put it back together in the kitchen. Charles hated it but Erik convinced him to let it go, pointing out how eager Raven was to show off her competency.

_“She’s not a child anymore, Charles,”_ and Charles had no idea how to defend himself.

So Charles sat in the kitchen and watched Erik cook, not permitted to do anything more than taste test. In Charles’s defense, both he and Raven had warned everyone.

“You never cooked _anything_?” Erik inquired, holding out a spoon so Charles could test the sauce. It was chicken…something. Charles knew that much.

A _delicious_ chicken something. Charles closed his eyes and licked his lips. Quite delicious indeed. “My mother felt…that it was, well, below our class. When I went to school, I put so much time into my studies that I only remembered to eat when Raven shoved food in front of me. If I wasn’t studying, I was, ah…”

Erik raised an eyebrow. Charles flushed. More and more he proved himself just a spoiled fool to Erik, it seemed.

“Partying,” he admitted, and memories flashed through his mind. Free for the first time and he went wild. How childish, in hindsight, but at the time it seemed like the most necessary thing in the world. He felt like he could breathe and spent most of his time trying to make himself breathless. It worked, really, days blazing by in sleepless hazes, although he always made sure he was put together perfectly, his powers disguising the dark circles under his eyes when nothing else worked.

Erik hummed and studied his face. “I can’t see it. I see you buried in your books, barely coming up for air.”

Charles smiled, remembering the scent of old libraries with their even older books. “Oh yes. That is certainly true.”

Erik held the spoon in his hand. The end shone with Charles’s saliva. He tilted his head to one side, grey eyes hard and focused on Charles like if he just tried hard enough, focused enough…

“The sauce,” Charles said helpfully.

With a frown, Erik turned back around. “You must have enjoyed yourself.”

His tone was odd, but his emotions were locked up tight. Charles refused to delve to find out what was wrong. “It was…different.”

Had he enjoyed himself? Thinking back on it, Charles wasn’t quite sure. He must have, though. It was just this house making him think that way. Surrounded by books and friends and throwing himself into his studies, he must have had fun.

Erik looked over his shoulder at Charles. “Different?”

Charles smiled at him but didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure of the answer himself.

While Erik stirred the sauce, Charles sat back and watched. Something about seeing Erik Lehnsherr in so domestic a setting soothed him. It seemed insane but Charles liked it. He had many good memories of this kitchen. This was where he met Raven, where the cook was sneak him hot cocoa while his mother drank herself into a stupor in the dining room. Kurt considered the kitchen below him. Cain and Charles had a silent truce about the kitchen, both ignoring the other when they stepped into this space.

Erik looked back over his shoulder at him. When Charles smiled again, it felt more real, less forced. Erik nodded, like he had seen something else, and went back to his cooking.

When Erik offered Charles another sample, Charles kept his eyes open and held Erik’s gaze.

xoxoxox

It was a silly, empty hallway in a silly, almost empty house.

If asked, Charles could not explain why this hallway disturbed him so much. He thought the dining room should have been worse, home to so many tense dinners and sharp knives. The ballroom was chilling, tall and endless and where sounds could echo forever. His old bedroom should have been the worst, with the light of the hallway blocked out by Kurt’s girth, the soothing noise of the crickets outside his window overshadowed by Kurt’s heavy breaths.

But no. It was this damned hallway.

If Charles looked, he could see where an old mirror used to be. Charles had scars on his back from that, and he could see splotches of rust red on the carpet below it. Kurt had never replaced that. That should be terrifying. So many damned spots in this house should be terrifying.

Ignoring that all of them happened over a decade ago and all parties were long gone. Charles exhaled and rubbed his arms. He knew enough psychology to be aware of auditory illusions. The mansion was old, susceptible to shifting and home to multiple odd noises. Perhaps there were even rodents in the walls that a yearly caregiver could not possibly keep out. It wouldn’t be surprising.

None of that stopped Charles from clamping his hands over his ears now.

Moans: his mother’s, drunk out of her mind, confused and frightened and so far gone, always so damnably far gone. He heard her several times, calling for Kurt to stop. He clamped his hands over his ears then, too, muffling all sound in Raven’s room. Had to protect Raven, even if he couldn’t protect Sharon.

Moans: Kurt’s, heavy, rasping, accompanied by the squeaking of the mattress.

The sounds echoed down the hall, down to Charles’s room, and sometimes the sounds wouldn’t stop there. Sometimes the floor would creak, groaning into the walls, the noise growing louder with each step.

“Charles?”

Charles dropped his hands and spun around. Erik stood, hands in his pockets, watching Charles with dark eyes. Charles flushed and looked away. Fantastic. He had to look like a lunatic.

“Is it time for chess again?” he tried and silently begged Erik to go with it.

But Erik wouldn’t. Hands still in his pockets, Erik walked down the hall. Like Charles he made no sound, but Charles couldn’t stop _listening_ for it, _waiting_ f or it.

_“Are you awake, you little shit?”_

Charles closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, Erik stood in front of him, close enough to touch. “You keep coming here,” Erik noted. “To this exact spot. Every night.”

Of course Erik would catch that. If nothing else, Charles’s watch would give him away. Charles wiped a hand over his face and tried to find a safe place to stare, but in this hallway, there was nowhere to look.

Erik’s own gaze swept through the hallway, missing nothing. His focus caught on several spots, eyes sharpening and lingering on dents and discolorations. Charles’s breath quickened.

Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, and Erik would see that, would see just how pathetic Charles was. So absolutely –

Erik touched Charles’s chin, and Charles flinched. Instead of letting go, Erik tightened his grip, bringing Charles’s gaze to his own. In the dark, Erik’s eyes were steel grey, hard and merciless. “What happened here, Charles?”

Like a coward, Charles closed his eyes. Erik shook his chin and Charles’s eyes snapped open again. He was breathing hard, Charles realized, almost _panting._ When had that happened?

Around them, the hallway seemed to creak and groan. Footsteps walking down the hall. Cain’s mind a spike of terror: _not me, not me, keep walking, **go away**_. Raven sleeping, oblivious, _stay asleep, my darling, sleep until dawn, have sweet dreams_.

“Charles,” Erik prodded again, relentless, on a mission, and Charles silently said _fuck it_. Maybe doing this would be like piercing an infected wound, and they could both focus on important things again. No more of this nonsense.

Charles held Erik’s gaze and opened his mind, and around them, the house wailed…

_Like a woman finding her husband’s corpse, head almost gone, and Charles was there when he died, was there when Sharon found him, and Sharon screamed loud and long while Charles just screamed in his own head._

_Sharon screamed at night, too, Kurt so rough, almost three times her size, but in the day she was silent, eyes misty and gaze gone, Kurt pouring her another drink and thinking **this will keep the bitch quiet, they all need to be quiet**_

_Except the house was never quiet. Kurt grabbing an expensive vase and throwing it at Cain’s head, then screaming at him because didn’t he know how expensive that vase was? How much it was worth? And Cain, furious and frightened, turning on Charles, the house absorbing every sound._

_Even the creaks when Kurt walked down the hall, the walls soaking in the sounds the carpet let escape, the creak of Charles’s door when Kurt opened it, all of Charles’s power poured into Kurt not noticing there was a door beside Charles’s, a door leading into another room where Raven lay sleeping._

_“You awake, you little shit? You awake?”_

_The walls soaked in Charles’s sobs, the ones that escaped his pillow, and Kurt called him a “corpse, just like your mother, just lying there, fucking corpses.”_

_Kurt’s own screams when he caught on fire, the lab burning and burning, his hair reeking as it sizzled, eyes bulging and watching Cain and Charles as they fled_.

Erik’s hand dropped away. Charles exhaled.

No. That didn’t make him feel better. Not at all.

“So,” he said, and he was so damned proud of himself when his voice didn’t shake, “now that we have that nonsense out of the way, would you like to play a game of chess?”

Erik stared at him like he had never seen him before. Charles smiled, an easy move, and grabbed Erik’s hand. Erik didn’t resist when Charles led him back to the study they had claimed as theirs, the floor silent under them.

Behind them, the oak door remained shut, the hallway still and quiet. No ghosts there. None at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm in denial that Darwin is dead. Just a tad.


End file.
